


The Old Ghost Heart

by HalewynsLady



Category: W.I.T.C.H.
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:14:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23228449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalewynsLady/pseuds/HalewynsLady
Summary: Nerissa brought Cassidy back from the grave and... her once-girlfriend is giving her trouble.
Relationships: Cassidy/Nerissa (W.I.T.C.H.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	The Old Ghost Heart

Aka Bring Me to Life.  
Because this calls for a time period appropriate song reference. 

A few days ago I read online that apparently these characters that I like were a couple before the whole... murder thing.  
Which set my mind in story-mode,  
and Boom! Hallo teenage years coming back to haunt me.  
Forgive any mess-ups in my time line and plot, I rewatched some of the show. I don't remember everything.  
We start out with old Nerissa and freshly summoned ghost Cassidy:  
\---------------------------

A ghost of a friend leans against me.  
"Do you still go out much?"  
"Out?"  
"You know, clubbing, partying, on earth or somewhere else. Staying up past your bedtime. You look like you live in a swamp, no offence."  
"I don't have a 'bedtime' anymore."  
"Right, grown-up..."  
"You were the party one, who took me with you."  
"Every Friday, sometimes Thursdays, in college."  
"And then we overstayed." I lived. I lived during those parties. I lived, with you. "Parties aren't something I need in my life, alone."  
"You really made it for yourself then?"  
"Are you trying to insult me?"  
"No. You are... happy with this? The life you made for yourself?"  
"Of course and I do 'stay up late' as you'd say. On business."  
"Yes, defending the country." Cassidy raises her arm as to charge forward.  
"Reviving old friends," I add. "well, one of them. And sometimes a weekend away with.... a friend." Caleb's father. Sometimes is 18 years ago.  
"A boy." Cassidy chirps, as if excited for me. She is quick to catch on to these things, I was rather hoping she would.  
"A man." I correct.  
"Nice?"  
"Yes. He was."  
"Oh," still cheerful, yet wistful too.  
"What is it?"  
"I would have loved that. To have seen you have... and oh!" She grasps for my metal hand, odd choice. "I'd loved to have been a mother!"  
"Enough to want to live?"  
"No," she winks, "of course not." 

"I want to live again too." I say. "I stayed, I fought, for the new guardians." In disguise. "After you died, I no longer felt alive, I tried to, I tried everything, to feel. Control everything, handle every crisis myself."  
"Life force for power." Cassidy repeats.  
"It was necessary." It spoiled the Mage's looks, it spoiled my own looks.  
"And now, I hope to exchange that power ..." I look at her, careful not to oversell it. If I give her puppy eyes, it would not sound convincing. "for life."  
"Mine?"  
"All of ours."  
"The girls?" Cassidy smiles, hopefully.  
"All alive."  
She looks so happy.  
I tell her about our friends' current lives. Her smile becomes a bit too wide, too tempted.  
I think I am close. 

We go to the beach.  
She makes a fleeting remark about lifeguards, because of course she would.  
This is the place where we first... not loved, not kissed but talked in a certain manner, a balance between us was created. Or at least, that was my impression.  
She drew me into the water, more than once. My arms around her waist, she drifted, giggling, furtive, always moving, chancing glances at me. Trusting me to protect her from the waves she loved. Which isn't very logical as she has the water powers and is part of the swimming team. If anyone drowns, it is me.  
We stand above that now, on the water. But when I look at this beach, at her, I still see us. The outgoing cheerful one and I, a few years older, keeping my distance. The most essential, experienced guardian with the pretty hair and the secret crush.  
I was waiting for her on the sand.  
"Time to go." I tell her, seeing that this isn't working, not for her.  
I am about to break myself, standing still, showing nothing.  
"Rissy." she calls me, as though nothing has changed. I haven't aged, no one has died.  
I will take my younger form soon. I ache for it.  
I have to have her first.  
First out of all of them. I knew, when I came up with this plan, I had to have her by my side first.  
To know it would not go wrong by raising the dead.

I don't tell her how often I visit her mother.  
Or how the lemonade sticks in my throat, reminds me of bygone days and how I hate it and I come back for more each time.  
Her long, heavy ghost scarf blows against me, not against me.  
Through me. 

"Say you want to live." I order her now and her words follow as an echo of mine, docile and sincere.  
I proclaim her weakness:  
"... the desire for something you cannot, should not, have." Pot, kettle.  
"You will live again, once your service to me is complete."  
Her "life" being her existence under her own free will.  
I take her with me.

When I wake, the world is pale and faded. I look at my hands, resting together and see three. Soft blue. I am looking through her. She is holding my hand, in a manner.  
She is lying against me, on, through, me. Touch is impossible.  
She is always in the room, standing, floating, staring at me. Her eyes never close. It is creepy but... she is in my thrall. This is what I want, to keep her this close, or she wouldn't be doing it. 

I go 'off to work' in the morning. The ghost, my ghost, bids me goodbye. I go to Kandrakar and to Halinor, to speed things up. I have to get her too. Then Kadma, then.... move forward and don't think of Cassidy too much, we had our fieldtrip-day, that is enough.

I stand leaning over my papers, making some last minute notes. I feel lonely. She hugs me as I work on my plans. Her ghostly arms coming out of my chest.  
"I told you not to."  
"Mistress?" Not Rissa or Rissie. It is not her.  
"Stay here. Do not follow me."  
I retire for the night. 

I have no choice but to wake her from my influence, for a moment.  
"You are here to provide me with power." I explain to her.  
"Then why do you keep me in your bed?"  
"I don't! You keep crawling into it."  
She makes an 'aaaaawe how sweet' face.  
"Do I have to Forbidden-Planet it out for you? It is probably your own subconscious. Charging against you.  
You are in love with me, again, still. That is where things went wrong the first time. I had your heart. The Heart of Kandrakar merely went with it."  
The Heart betrayed me.  
"Get out of bed and leave me alone."  
The ghost retreated to the shadows.  
"Darling," It sounded after a few minutes. My ghost was bored. "Rissy, can you call me Dear Heart again?"  
"No."  
"No, you clearly jinxed the expression."  
"Yes, I clearly did."  
I fall asleep soon after. Leaving the ghost free to roam. She can't touch or move anything, it is safe. I restore the enchantment in the morning.

I perform some of the greatest magic yet and, as she is near, I expect her outbursts of "Totally!" and "Extreme!", "Awesome...", "Epic!".  
She can't spontaneously do that now. Her ghost was more alive before my spell of obedience.  
Their eyes don't close when they are bound to me, not of those living, not of the dead.

At night thìs happens every time.  
"Get. Out. Of. My. Bed."  
She does not take the order.  
I rephrase it, rethink it, nothing helps her catch on.  
I refuse to wake her again.  
At long last, is it the fourth night?, I relieve the spell.  
I will make her sleep, or whatever it is ghosts do, outside, in the snow.  
Is there a snooze button on ghosts? So that I can fix her to a spot that is not where I am resting.  
Cassidy's ghost comes to herself, she ... pouts. The audacity.  
Her powers are mine, she is mine, I keep what is mine. I will take away her free will once I have settled this glitch. She is too close.  
"We are Bitter Exes." I say, using one of her expressions. "Remember?"  
"Better than you. But you have to understand, Rissa, it hasn't been that long to me."  
Although she is a ghost and I feel nothing of her and she not of me, I know one of her hands grips me by the hips.  
"I will make you a soulless servant again."  
And then she will lay herself on, through, in me completely again, which is worse, I think.  
I watch the ghost cry.  
She realizes what situation she is in. Sold her soul afterall. Being used. By her powerhungry, once best friend.  
"It is not my fault." she sobs and she is right.  
I want to kiss her cheek. Not just her cheek.  
I want to touch a ghost. It unsettles me, as far stranger things have not.  
She understands that she has lost, she understands my need to sleep undisturbed by her presence.  
"We'll play Sleeping Beauty then." she says, imaging me perhaps as I looked when we were friends, both alive. She closes her ghostly eyes, not looking convincingly asleep. But she stays put, of her own free will.  
Her ghostly form does not slide closer or envelop me as a hungry cell.  
In the morning I wake, she is still there, at a distance, 'asleep' and I bespell, soulbind, her again before she can say anything.  
This will get better, I tell myself, once she is human again. Then I can physically lock her out and push her away. 

When she is alive she calls me "Mistress", she did so before as well, it hasn't changed. It feels different. I ignore it as much as I can. Which means I have to ignore myself, more than her, and that hurts.

Men are waiting on me in the mall. They are in awe.  
And all the girls hate me, not true, some must have seen me enter and are having a private panic moment. The guardians, they hate me, not recognising me, at school. They believe me to be a new student. It is stupid to be envious of other women, especially if you are envious of the one being drooled over, by boys.  
But then these guardians are children. They will learn, later.  
My enchantment does not stretch to those of the female sex on purpose. I can't do this to girls.  
And I can't betray her. Cassidy.  
She pushes my shop-official admirers away, she waits on me herself.  
Old, young, no matter what appearance I wear.  
I was allpowerful here and suddenly that is gone. As she puts a grape in my hand, one in my mouth, kisses it shut.  
This won't do. I can't let my desire run away with me like that. Practical thoughts of her only, she is a tool.  
"Mistress."  
We catch the intrudors.  
There is a fight, an escape.

There is time to sleep.  
It happens again.  
"Awaken." I order her.  
"I am in your bed." says the no-longer ghost girl.  
She faces me. We aren't touching beneath the covers, this feels like a slumberparty.  
"Yes, and you can leave now."  
"Zombie-me has been here before. You can't get her, me, to stay far enough."  
It is one thing to have her stand in my room every night, it is quite another lying right next to her, near touching.  
"I killed you." I hardly ever think of it that way. I use euphemisms, excuses, for myself. An accident.  
"Lighten up Rissa, I said I don't hold grudges."  
"I kílled you."  
"I heard you. Will you keep repeating that? We are finally having a conversation.  
As I said, no grudge.  
I have however remarks on what you are presently doing. You are taking this waaay too seriously with your whole worlds and hearts domination." She looks as if she will throw her arms in the air in hopelessness. "It is not original either." She scoots closer and kisses me on the neck.  
"Oh, you sleep in the nude." she says as though this is a completely new discovery to her.  
"I am going to sleep with you, Rissa.  
It is what your heart wants."  
In no time she is clambering up on me, after a moment's struggle with the bedsheets.  
"Mistress?" she says, jokingly and kisses me on the cheek.  
I turn over, she tumbles out of bed, taking the sheets with her.  
She looks up angrily.  
"Good, be angry with me, I am sick of this. I hope you are starting to dislike me already, finally."  
She looks up from the floor. "If I wake because your spell gets broken or you have to lift it again and am angry with you, what will you do then?"  
"Go to sleep."  
"I'll get nightmares. Of your hands, blasting lightning and falling. Will you hold me? I am your Frankenstein's monster now. The girl from beyond the grave, in need of love and affection from its creator and if you give me that, everything will be fine."  
"Don't say that. You are not Frankenstein's monster."  
"What am I then?"  
Cassidy, as before. I don't answer.  
"Let me sleep with you, one night, please? And give up the 'evil plan'?"  
I don't want to let her succeed.  
Cassidy gets up from the ground. She wipes her gown.  
"I am not wanted then?"  
"I killed you." I say, but she starts to undress anyway. No grudge.  
"A crime passionelle," she says jokingly, "this can be one too."  
"You should be careful. You are alive now. You can hold grudges again. Have regrets. Get hurt."  
She looks at me, she doesn't understand.  
"I am not the same woman. You cannot trust me." I continue.  
Cassidy shook her head. "I have no grudge."  
"I'll give you a grudge. Just don't sleep with me."  
"I will have regrets," she admits. "big, ginormous ones of being your puppet and hurting people for you. The crimes of your revenge, those are unforgivable."  
"Good."  
"Yes and I still feel... I want to sleep with you. I think of you as my girlfriend." There are tears in her eyes and I hate it. "I can't erase that." she whispers. "You missed me most, out of everyone. There is no sense denying it."  
I restore the spell, not knowing what else to do.  
She sticks to me like glue in the morning.

They sit, the former guardians, in a circle, on cosy pillows, as they once did as friends. A picture perfect.  
Only silent now. Vacant, waiting, aimless. Until I tell them what to do.  
I walk by, ruffle Cassidy's hair as I pass her. The thought overtakes me of Cassidy jumping up, excitedly, looking at me. "You are tall. Taller than I even remember. You know, from seeing you twenty minutes ago. Have you grown?" She would say, long time ago, her look turning a bit lost because she was thinking about kissing, before she'd skip off on some happy quest.  
She always had a quest, to help animals, people, any of us guardians.  
Things we did not even ask of her. Except for me.  
I used to think Cassidy was intimidated by me. She trusted me to ask for what I wanted myself. I was good at that, still am. Generally.  
But Cassidy must have already known the future, or felt it somehow by the heart, and sought only to spare me by avoiding me.  
If when the heart showed me it had chosen her I had... taken it better... the girls would have formed a dream team without me. They would have promised to stay in touch. That would have meant the world to me, though I'd never admit it.  
But they wouldn't.  
Only Cassidy would want to and she would probably stay away by guilt or embarrassment.  
The day the heart showed us, just me and Cassidy, its decision and we would have to face the council, the girls with the news, there Cassidy would stand. To comfort me, take my head, my heart, in her hands and kiss my cheek as if more turmoil would harm me. 

She gave me kisses at parties. I don't know why. She gave me kisses at parties, that is why I went. I told myself that wasn't why I went. I never graced another party afterwards though. Not if I could avoid it. Not even as the Mage. I thought I wanted friendship. With people, with the other guardians, desperately. I wasn't very good at it.  
She'd pick up a dozen guys a night too.  
So maybe it was the kisses, that made me go.

Cassidy loudly proclaims her love for men. It is some built-in defence mechanism, a straight-people-pleaser. She never switches it off, not even around me.  
It is part of her "her bubbly personality", as boys have described her to me, to ingratiate the best friend, gain my approval. I have none to give.  
Boys gave me their phonenumbers, for her too. I did not show them to her, to protect her. She was fine with this. I did tell her. She often complimented me on the boys I 'pulled'. The interest that came my way, she was proud of it, anyway, she said I should be a model with my built and beauty and then fewer men would dare approach me and maybe then I'd be less crouchy about the attention. As when I was the Mage, that was a benefit to being the Mage. I learned how to intimidate and how to feel less threatened by male attention.  
Cassidy had no true, lasting interest in men, despite her loud words and boy-kissing records. She just loved people. For all Cassidy's love and concern for every living being on any planet she never spoke of a boy/man as a set future wish. Only as passing features to her life, as doting 'swarms'.  
"You are the grumpiest person I know," she told me, before kissing me.  
Yan Lin was the first who had some words to say about my, our, behaviour. That hurt the most.  
I liked Yan Lin. She had a wisdom and jest I always lacked, yes, envied.  
"I'm too old for you now." I bite to Cassidy's face. Me, looking young again, this weakens my argument.

I release her for a while, tired of having less than a ghost of her hovering by my shoulder, I am tired of illusions.  
I find her resting over my battle plans. She has read them and written on them. On many of the papers a single "NO". Also on several a "I hate that you did this.". A "OMG You're a mother! When were you going to tell me this?! I'll throw you a baby shower!" with an added "I owe you one." and another added "If you release us." "P.S. Did you go through labour under glamour?"  
The culprit was asleep now. The pen point is still open, drawing lines on her arm as she moved over it in her sleep.  
I take the marker and write "I love you" on her scribbled arm. A high school feeling washes over me. When we wrote bright coloured gell pen messages to each other on our hands and arms during class and coloured each other's nails with them.  
"Hey, you old lesbian." she smirks, not very awake. "Where is your mind at?"  
I see myself kiss her, hypothetically, I see her scream. I decided not to, not worth the effort. Just like high school.  
"Now to bed." Her eyes open, already glossed over, not awake, not her anymore.  
She walks away, folds herself in my bed and I hold her. 

I liked when it was just her, just Cassidy, constantly by my side, floating. Still a ghost. That felt right. Two ancients. Two monsters. Not friends. Mistress and slave, close enough to friends. Not humans. Not feeling.  
Now I either take the whole kidnapped girl gang with me or let them stay at home. 

The next night, she is too close. I wake her.  
It is a habit by now. When she gets too close I let her have her free will back for a while, she stays out of my way, or we talk.  
"In your bed again."  
"No new observations? Then keep quiet."  
"Aaaawe, Rissie." She points at her arm.  
"That... should have worn off by now."  
"This settles it."  
"Settles what?"  
"We are going out. Open a portal to Earth, Heatherfield, we are going shopping. And I will need a dramatic pink hairdryer to do my hair."  
"Your hair looks fine." I watch the red hair brush her shoulders. "We are not going shopping."  
"But we need clothes to go out ... and a scrunchie. I want to put a high pony tail in your hair. We can't go out not wearing anything new."  
"No, we can go in our guardian outfits."  
"We are going!"  
My easily enthused redhead.

"None of the others is giving me trouble." I sigh as she is eating in a burger place that she picked out.  
"Yes, because you don't want to talk to them." She tipped her drink to me. "Especially after how you treated them."  
"And yet ... here you are."  
"You treated me the worst and you still want me around."  
Yes, no. "That cliff wanted to break." My night time honesty is gone. I pretend this is a valid answer.  
"Sure, sure."  
"How does this not bother you?"  
"Oh, dear, you do bother me all right. ... Not even a kiss since I returned to life, not one and it's been... days.  
Not while I was conscious of my own body at least."  
She watches me, not watching her.  
"Want to share my burger?"  
I shake my head.

"Haunting you is fun. I may stick around a bit longer.  
Not to overthrow people and planets, you have to let that plan go."  
"I want to rule the worlds," I tell her. "they need peace."  
"Even if the cure is war?"  
"They won't stand a chance. It will be merciful."  
"And what do you want, besides that? What do you want for yourself?"  
"I want Caleb and Caleb's father to see what I am capable of. I want to show them how wrong they were to refuse me. I want them to accept me and stay with me."  
"Oh come on! You don't believe that, do you?"  
"What?"  
"You don't even use your boyfriend's name."  
"I see no reason to."  
She cocks her head. "You don't want them with you forever."  
"I'll be happy."  
"Because you'll make yourself happy, not because they do."  
"I do care about them." My eyes drift to the hollow heart drawing curled on her stomach.  
"That is not what I am questioning. If you wanted them by your side you would be pursuing and enslaving them,"  
"I did..."  
"more vehemently." She waves her hand, looking for words. "The way you pursue your old girl gang of guardians. And don't say it's for power. You have quite enought already and it would be easier to steal the elements from the new guardians due to their lack of experience. Aren't I right?"  
She looks down at her burger, sadly.  
"You could have slept with me." she whispers.  
With her soul disconnected from her body? No thank you.  
"I want you to. And you have little trouble sleeping with people under false pretences." she continues. "It could be like before."  
"No. It won't be like before."  
"Please."  
"Excuse me if I won't get lost in fantasies!"*  
"I think... you don't realize how lucky you are, not many people would consider taking someone back who killed them."  
"You really should start to think before you speak." And I really really want her. "It's too long ago."  
"You dedicated the rest of your life to Kandrakar, clearly you have moved on.  
So now you take over worlds, using me and your hypnotised girls band. That is bonkers."  
"I don't need them."  
"You need me. You would not keep bringing me back if you didn't."  
"I can give all of your powers to myself. I am more powerful on my own."  
"But... you are too nostalgic to."  
"It is easier having you obey me."  
"You need me, Rissy. Also, my next piece of evidence, you were on the council with Halinor."  
"Not as myself. I never risked getting close to her."  
"You missed us. Or you wouldn't have stayed at her side."  
"I wanted to prove myself to Kandrakar."  
"As someone else. When they had already written you off."  
It is part of my revenge, my insides whine. 

"Are you certain you don't want this?" she asks, waving her last bites of burger.  
"You used to love that, sharing food. Remember that time we made spaghetti, or something like it, at Hali's and ate it with all guardians from the same big bowl. What a mess we made." She pauses. "We love you. We know you. All of us. Okay, the others don't love you the way I do, but still."  
I shake my head.  
"I am your girlfriend." she argues.  
"They put me in jail where I could see nothing but your grave, just outside. As a cruel dark spin on the balcony scene. It was to serve as a reminder to my crime. As if I could ever forget. At the time I was outraged that they couldn't even bury you on earth.  
It wasn't too bad at first, I couln't think of anything else but you and my crime anyway. But you grew louder and louder as the grave whithered, overgrew and everyone forgot. I watched others, visit, leave flowers. I wanted to break the stone open and imagined I released you. I wanted it so much. The unquiet grave. It almost made me insane."  
"I think it did, love."

We walk through an alley. It is near dark, she wants to go to a club. To escape.  
I walk tall, see her looking at my stomach.  
"That dress always makes me want to poke you... right there."  
She points, comes closer, places her fingertip against my stomach. It is not a poke. "You are ticklish there." She knows it well. "Still evil." she says, I laugh. "But ticklish." Her fingertips press against my lower stomach. "Wait a moment, stay right here." I do. She flattens her hand into the hole. I know I am smiling at her.  
"Look, Rissa," she says calmly, slowly. " I found and revealed the chink in your armour." She stand against me now. "All I need to make you..." playfully Cassidy reaches up for a kiss. Her hand lowers into my dress. "mine."  
Her hand feels beautiful against my skin.  
She reaches down to my groin. Her fingers slide against my folds.  
"You are stretching the fabric..."  
I go quiet in a gasp.  
Her fingers are cold fingers at first, quickly warm by my own skin.  
She strokes me, her fingers gently exploring between my folds, pressing down.  
My redhead looks up at me.  
"Do you want this?"  
Nerissa, the bold one, who knows what she wants, is going to run away from this by attacking it. I grab the sides of her head and kiss her with such passion and movement she has to remove her hand.  
"No water jokes?" I whisper.  
"I am a respectful girl."  
I yank that hand of hers and march into the deserted streets and rain. Stones and rain are all we need. "Let's go, find that cafe of yours before you get us into more trouble."  
"Making out in public is making trouble? Taking over the universe by force isn't? Curiouser and curiouser."  
"It is for the common good."  
Cassidy runs with me. "How about..." she offers in a suggestive tease of a tone. "your personal good?"  
I know exactly what smile she is wearing.  
"A retro bar, perfect!" Cassidy pulls me with her.  
The warmth of the bar embraces us.  
"Shots, two. Vodka."

"Come on, take a shot, try it again."  
"Kissing a dead girl?"  
"Forget the dead thing. Come on Rissa, conquer Earth a little." she beams. 

We go quiet at the bar. After a while she says:  
"Hey stranger, so tell me who you are."  
I don't reply. I wish we could be those two girls from before. We sure could drink and have fun.  
"I like your ring." she ventures.  
"I took it from the Mage when I took her place. I have worn it for over 18 years, to travel between worlds. I am going to give it to you, don't look for any symbolism in that, it is for practical purposes you will be..."  
"Zombiefied, got it."  
"You will use it to go to the new guardians and take them out for good."  
"You really know how to dampen a conversation...." Her flirtiness is gone. I miss it. "What will you be up to? While you send us out..."  
"I have to go seduce a rock."  
"Should be easier than seducing you." Cassidy sighs. "You only see the murder between us.  
You took my life, my quintessence, did you? So what, you panicked, used the Force for hatred, you did?" Her Yoda voice is a disaster that should not be allowed to walk this or any world. "Lightning bolts flash from your hands and I was gone.  
I am sorry you murdered me!" she shouts.  
Who knows what the bartender thinks.  
"Have you even looked at our friends? Their living-dead open eyes. Can't you please, free them? Face it. You collected us because you want to keep us. You are not taking revenge, you are grieving."  
"For you?"  
"Yes, and the future you would have had as a guardian, your life on earth, your friends, ordinary moments like this."

"At the heart of it," I groan at that word. "we are just two earth girls who like each other."  
"Optimist." I accuse her.  
"Who cares if we have been old, dead, undead, monsters. We are ourselves again."  
Cassidy is swaying to the awful, upbeat and dated music of this place.  
She is drinking a cocktail with a straw. Her finger signs to me, to Rissa, to come over she whisper-yells: "Do you miss being alive yet?"  
"Not particularly." I reply. Cassidy leans back against the bar.  
"Oh we should dance. Hey? How about now?" She kisses the side of my jaw, on tip toes. I try not to smile, not to look convinced yet. I blow her question off with her smirk, but my smile peeks up all the way to my cheekbones.  
She wants to get past me, to the open space to dance, but I don't let her, I keep her against the bar. I kiss her quite hard, repeatedly, as we stand there. She shies away happily, leaning over her drink, giving me glances. I just have to keep overwhelming her with kisses. I know that to be too much for her. She starts to drink more cocktails 'to cope'.  
Maybe I just want to make her happy.  
She is talking about boys again, it is her default setting.  
She soon can't stand on her feet anymore and I get to take her home, safely. I tuck her into bed without further trouble.  
I got out of this quite unharmed.

But the next night, she is in my bed again.  
"I propose we sleep together." I say, because it sounds nicer and less ungrateful than 'Fine, I give in, I'll have sex with you tonight.'  
"Do you mean sleep or..."  
"Have sex."  
"Have sex... geez Nerissa... that makes it sound like something you get in a store. I want to make love."  
"Will that make you happy?" I bury my face in my pillow. "Will you quiet down and stop haunting me?"  
My ghost.  
"You still want to put me to rest? You think you can simply give me what I desire, and I will get back my peace as a ghost? Are you doing this to shut me up?"  
That backfired.  
"One last time, if I sleep with you, will that give you the rest you need?" I ask, sounding too practical, too commanding. Embarrassing her.  
"I don't know," a very much alive Cassidy says. "that rather depends on you I fear.  
I stand by my first impression. It is your ghost that causes your unease.  
So the real ultimate question is... Do you want to live?"  
She strokes my back. Uncovering me.  
"Rissiieeee." My Cassidy pleads.  
"Tell me you want to live."

\------------------

Hey a hopeful ending! 

* the irony.

"The unquiet grave" is a folk ballad that I love.


End file.
